


A Month of Magic

by morethanthedark (Kayndred)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: 31 Days of Spook, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Spirits, Clairvoyance, Dimension Travel, Disembodied limbs, Ghosts, Halloween, Halloween 2014, Magical Physics, Mirage - Freeform, Necromancee, Necromancy, Nonbinary Character, Prophetic Dreams, Psychic Abilities, Skeletons, Spirits, Telekinesis, The Library of Alexandria, Time Shenanigans, assorted random mythological references, combeferre is already done with this quest, gratuitous media references, necromancer - Freeform, other dimensions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-19 17:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2396333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayndred/pseuds/morethanthedark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The adventures of one Elder Owl necromancee, his (one-fourth) skeleton summons, and the people they meet over the course of the month of magic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Greasy Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Everyday of this month I’m going to write a spoopy (and possibly even spooky) one shot or snippet or vignette while I work on some other projects. Here we go.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first meeting of the owl-necromancee and the one forth skeleton man

Combeferre summons the skeleton by accident. He was trying for a zombie.

"I’m only a fourth skeletal." Says the not-zombie. Which is true, seeing as he has a flesh chest, a flesh left arm, and most of both legs. His right arm is bone from shoulder to fingertips, he has no organs below his ribs, and his pelvis only has tendons that hold his legs in place. His right ankle is also exposed.

"And you feel weird." Not-zombie continues, pulling on Combeferre’s hair. His ear tufts flip up and then back, and the summons whistles. 

"I’m a necromancee." Combeferre says, batting away both a flesh and a bone hand. "I died, there wasn’t enough of my essence to bring me back whole, so they wove me with an Elder Owl."

Not-a-zombie whistles again, a strange occurrence that sounds like it shakes through his exposed ribs before leaving his lips. “That’s some fancy magic. I’m Grantaire.” He sticks out his skeleton hand.

"Combeferre."

Grantaire watches as Combeferre cleans up his summoning circle, two fat candles burning in the cradle of his exposed pelvis. It casts interesting shadows on his ribs and spine as well as the wall behind him.

"So now what?" asks Grantaire, passing his skeleton fingers over the candle flames in his stomach. He’d lit and anchored them himself, and Combeferre hadn’t asked.

Now what indeed. “Well, I was aiming for a zombie, not a - you.” 

"Thanks."

"And since you didn’t leave, I guess we can go try and find you a cat."

Grantaire looks confused, snuffing the candles and standing all in one go. “Why a cat?”

"Cats have magical powers." Combeferre begins, leading Grantaire out of his work room. "We can bind one to you to preserve the magic I used to call you up - it should keep you from rotting or falling apart. Did you know cats can actually see into the third plane? A recent study showed that …"

Grantaire listens, enraptured, and watches the Owl Man as he speaks. Of all the people to raise him from the misty beyond, he actually got a good one.


	2. A Vision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The owl necromancee and his sort-of skeleton summon a mirage to help them find a spirit cat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And Day 2

Jehan can only be summoned with exactly thirteen and a quarter candles, arranged in a very specific cluster of scatter points.

Jehan is a mirage, and circumstances for eir existence are very particular.

Which is why e startles badly when e appears only to be confronted by the face of a half-skeleton.

"Get back, Grantaire, you’ll scare them." Says eir apparent summoner. The partial skeleton moves back, face no longer bare inches from Jehan’s. "I’m Combeferre, Elder Owl necromancee, and this is Grantaire, one-fourth skeleton man summons."

"Hi nice to meet you, hi." Grantaire says, sticking out his hand. Jehan puts eir hand over his, unable to grip and shake like normal. It doesn’t really matter anyway - the hand Grantaire gives him is fully bone.

"Hello." Jehan says, curious. Normally it’s old mountain mages needing knowledge or lost travelers summoning him on accident, not someone as well collected as the Owl necromancee appeared to be.

"Don’t mind the stare." Grantaire says, lighting a stick of incense on one of Jehan’s candles. He slides the wood end into a lump of wax where his intestines would have been. Jehan thinks it’s very convenient he doesn’t have them. "It’s the Elder Owl in him, I think. Definitely the eyes, at least."

Combeferre does have a very piercing stare, and his eyes are a striking black in the light, pupils reflecting blue. He flicks his ear tufts nervously, and Jehan can see all sorts of interesting owl aspects in his person.

"Verreaux eagle owl Elder." He mumbles, and Grantaire pats his shoulder with his flesh hand.

"I like your eyes, and your ears. And your everything." Grantaire says, and he’s remarkably earnest. Jehan wonders how long they’ve been friends.

Combeferre coughs. “Anyway, we summoned you, Jehan, because we need your help finding a spirit cat.”

"A spirit cat?" That’s a new one. "Why would you need one?"

"Combeferre summoned me the other day on accident. Yesterday, really." Grantaire grins and Jehan blinks. A whole day, and Grantaire acts like they’re the best of friends? It makes something in eir twist - what was - "And apparently I’ll fall apart if I say too long without an anchor. Combeferre," he grins at the necromancee, who blushes suddenly and then twists his neck around to look in a completely different direction, "says that a spirit cat would work best. Because I’m staying."

"You’re staying." That’s all sorts of -

"Yep." Grantaire pops the ‘p’, shoulders rolling beneath a black tank-top with the last two inches cut off. His skeleton hand raps it’s fingers against the exposed ridge of his pelvis. He turns to look at Combeferre, who’s looking back, but - it’s there - a faint outline, an after image - a _mirage_ -

\- he’s looking at Jehan too, Grantaire is, or the shadow of him is, looking at em like _please_ and _I need this_ and _don’t tell him, please, I promise_.

_I’m different now_.

Jehan flickers over the candles, watching the face of Grantaire and the face of Grantaire, and hating knowing.

"Alright." E says, and crosses eir arms over eir chest, ready to make this work. "I’ll help you. But on my terms. There are some conditions that need to be set - and payment to discus."


	3. The Ghost of a Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jehan, Combeferre and Grantaire on the quest for knowledge. Alternatively - how to not get lit on fire while trying to reach the greatest library in history.

"I want your eye." Jehan says, and Combeferre blinks, slow and deliberate.

"Right now?"

E tosses eir hair, snorting. “At the end of the quest. _Now_ , really.” E frowns at him before turning to Grantaire. “And you…” E tilts eir head from one side to the other, watching as Grantaire fiddles with the hem of his pants, chewing on his lip.

"I’ll know it when I see it." E says, and Grantaire looks both relieved and stricken, wary.

"Nothing too great." He insists.

"And nothing too small." Finishes Jehan, and they shake on it - skeleton hand to insubstantial outline.

—

Jehan allows eirself to be bound to a lantern from the Middling Place, crafted out of onyx iron and lit with a sky candle.

"Can you carry it, Grantaire?" e asks, blinking innocently at him. He smiles, just barely baring his teeth - they may be working together, and Jehan may _know_ , but that doesn’t mean Grantaire has to like it.

"Sure." He picks up the lantern, judging its weight on both his skeleton arm and his flesh one. "It wont wear me out."

Combeferre spends the next half hour drawing a portal to Jehan’s specifications, while Grantaire runs around his workshop getting things like charcoal and ash and rocks formed in the hearts of mountains.

"Put this one in your chest." Jehan says, pointing at a fist sized chunk of crystal. In the buzzing electric lighting it looks the color of old blood.

Grantaire eyes it, frowning. There really isn’t anything _in_ his chest to put it in, just the tatters of his lungs and the layers of skin that shield his upper ribs like a fleshy afghan.

"It can go in this." Combeferre says, and presents him with… what looks like a mess of wax strings. He looks at Combeferre like he’s crazy, but the owl just sighs, smiles like Grantaire’s naivete is adorable.

(Grantaire died a long time ago, it’s not his fault he isn’t caught up with all the newfangled magic.)

With a flick of his wrists Combeferre releases the strings and scoops the stone into the mesh of the wax cords. It hangs suspended, an uneven patchwork of black wax and blood brown.

It looks dull. Grantaire almost decides to deny Jehan this, almost steps away when Combeferre moves to slide the loops at the end of the strings over his ribs, suspending the stone roughly where his heart had been.

"Perfect." Jehan says, and e taps one of the strings. Grantaire jolts, looking down frantically when he feels the _twang_ of it rattle through his ribs and his spine.

When his eyes meet Jehan’s, still full of shock, the mirage raps against his ribs with eir knuckles. _Grantaire can feel it_.

"I’m watching you." E whispers, and it’s not - e’s not being malicious, e’s not blackmailing him - it’s a fact. Grantaire can tell that Jehan’s been around a long time, long enough to _see_ and _know_ , probably long enough to send Grantaire right back to where he came from.

Combeferre calls Jehan over to help him with a symbol, and Grantaire takes a breath he doesn’t need before turning to grab another candle.

—

"Next time we have to travel between dimensions, we’re taking a freaking carriage." Grantaire shouts over the roar of the passing dimensional winds. In eir lantern Jehan prays that they never have to.

Combeferre, bundled against the supernatural chill, nods fiercely.

—

They step out of the cold and into the _heat_.

The landscape around them is rocky and jagged, huge slabs of broken earth jutting up around them like black teeth. The sky is crimson, the clouds floating like bloated bruises overhead a sickly green.

"There." Jehan says, pointing to the left.

It’s a steep decline down to the center of a huge crater, the center so far away that Grantaire can only barely make out the smear of lava at the bottom.

He looks to Combeferre, who’s eyes are dilated wide and his skin is ashy.

Combeferre, with his owl’s eyes, can see the pits of black tar that speckle the crater walls, the twisted bone white trees that grow in sparse clumps, skeleton fingers reaching toward the blood colored sky.

He can see the shadows that move from each ghostly thicket to the tar pits and back, aimless, listless, stilted.

He can see the moat of bubbling lava that surrounds an island at the very center of the crater, and the great, burned building that sits like a blackened and crouching beast on the crest of the island’s hill. It towers over the scarce white trees that attempt to grow near it - Combeferre can’t imagine standing next to it.

"It’s terrifying." He says.

Jehan looks resigned. “It’s the Library of Alexandria.”


	4. Comin' Round the Mountain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One should never assume that space works the same in any two places, or that the guardians of great wonders will always ask riddles. Sometimes you have to walk up to get down and answer strange sex facts to bypass magical barriers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lateness of this one! Got caught up in real life business.

"This is some space-time physics warp shit right here." Grantaire says, climbing, of all directions, _up_ the the narrow stairs that wind in a spiral around the crater. They are bruise purple-black and shiny, and despite the fact that he can _see_ that his feet are moving down when he looks at them, and the earth at their side rises up the farther they go, he has the distinct feeling of walking _up_ the seemingly unending stairs.

To the left one of the skeleton trees rattles with a brief wind, making a noise like broken glass. The shadows - whose eyes are dark red splotches in an area roughly where a face might be - shriek and sway jerkily toward the closest tar pit before scattering. Grantaire watches them flicker across the incline in hiccuping teleporting jumps.

"What are they?" Combeferre asks, eyes wide behind his glasses, unfailingly curious.

"The souls of characters killed." Says Jehan, just a resting torso outside of eir lantern. "When a story is lost, or a book is burned, the character ends up here. The more the story is lost, the more copies of a book burned, the more permanent the shadow becomes."

None of them are definitive now, of course, not even to Jehan’s piercing gaze. E looks at them and sees full void, wholesome absence, shadows within shadows and ageless hunger.

E can’t imagine being a story so unloved e would turn into _that._

They spend what could be hours walking slowly up-down the crater, watching the clouds move overhead, listening to the shattering trees, and once, briefly, observing a lance of purple lightning as it strikes the ground, the earth shuddering with electric ripples.

The shadows never come close enough to touch, and for that they are grateful - even if their haunting eyes track them in unnerving stillness.

Eventually they reach the bottom (top?) of the stairs, Combeferre breathing deeply despite the strange absence of scent, thankful to be stopped. Grantaire - lacking lungs and a physically functioning body - and Jehan - more an image than anything else - trade worried looks.

"Just catching my breath." He huffs, stretching his arms above his head. His lungs ache even though until they’d stopped he hadn’t felt at all tired. "I don’t like dimensions that mislead the body."

"It doesn’t get any better from here." Jehan says, looking rueful. Grantaire just sighs.

"Of course it doesn’t."

—

The bridge that hovers over the lava moat is made of glass.

"Sorry if I don’t exactly trust the magic behind it." Grantaire grumbles, moving carefully along. He can see straight through to the bubbling, shifting semi-liquid below, and it’s unnerving.

"At least you have layers." Jehan grumbles, curled around eirself in the lantern, eyeing the bridge through the decorative holes in its sides.

"I have no idea what that means." Grantaire says.

Combeferre snorts.

—

The doors are three times Combeferre’s height and just as wide, and from the twisted, whirling knots in he wood a great pointed face stretches out toward them, blinking ghostly yellow eyes at them.

“ _Who so dares approach the Library of Alexandria?_ " The face rasps, and Jehan shivers as the voice scrapes over what would be eir skin.

"Three spirits of magic." Jehan calls, spilling from the lantern. "We seek knowledge on spirit cats to save one of our own."

"… _Answer these three questions, and you may yet pass the threshold._ " Intones the voice.

“ _What… is the title of the third song on Blue Oyster Cult’s 1976 album ‘Agents of Fortune’?_ ”

Combeferre and Grantaire trade confused looks while Jehan frowns at the door.

"Are you serious?"

“ _Is that your final answer?_ ”

"No!" Shouts Grantaire, "No, it is not!"

"Have you even listened to that album?" Jehan asks as they huddle together, debating answers. "I was prepared for riddles, not pop-culture questions."

"Do you think it’s really obscure?" Grantaire asks, looking over Jehan’s shoulder to the face. It arches a brow at him and he looks away. "Do you have reception, Combeferre? Maybe we can google it."

Combeferre pulls out his phone, sighing is dismay when it flashes a picture of an unhappy cactus before flickering and dying. “I don’t think so.”

"Ugh. Okay. What’s the first song you think of in regards to Blue Oyster Cult?"

"Veteran of the Pyschic Wars."

"Joan Crawford."

"Both of those are from ‘81." Grantaire says, running his skeleton hand over his exposed ribs, rapping against the bone, thinking.

"That’s it!" Jehan exclaims, grabbing Grantaire’s hand. E holds it up like a prize, turning to the door and proclaiming triumphantly, "Don’t fear the Reaper!"

“ _Correct._ ”

—

"Why do you know that is rains diamonds on Saturn and Jupiter?"

"I thin the real question is why do _you_ know that the inner nose swells during sex?”

—

The first room in the library is full of doors - free standing and not, in all woods and carvings and paints and styles. Purple fabric hangs from a central point in the ceiling and radiates out to all edges of the walls, and in the folds of the fabric Combeferre can see little moving figures with glowing eyes. All around them independent doors lift off the floor and ascend into the roof-bound shade, while new ones drop down to take their place.

"Where do we go now?" Grantaire asks, peering at one of the free standing doors. It looks to be covered in grass and mushrooms, and shudders when his bone hand touches it.

"We have to find the Librarian." Jehan mumbles, caught in the overall awe of the place. E’d never actually gotten inside before, too insubstantial without a lantern as an anchor and not strong enough to carry the lantern eirself.

They wander between doors, opening ones that look promisingly normal, but find only isles of floating scrolls, mile high stacks of leather bound tomes, and, on one memorable occasion, books in the process of writing themselves - or being written by an outside force.

"What do you think I’d have to sacrifice to find the right door?" Combeferre asks, cleaning his glasses after a brief foray into a hall made entirely of ice. Stories had been written in long, crisp lines across what had to be a glacier, but he’d grown too cold too quickly to read much.

"Probably your voice." Someone says, and their voice echoes around the room and around the doors. "Or your hands."

"Who are you? Show yourself!" Jehan demands, glaring into the shadows. E can see the outline of their guest as they move through the veils of fabric toward them, finally emerging into the strange half-light of the room.

"I’m Courfeyrac," the ghost says, and bows low. When Courfeyrac straightens Jehan can see that the spirit’s hands are not attached directly to its arms. Nor is its head. "The Spirit of Radio."


	5. A Comedy of Errors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe if they hadn’t had to travel to the hub of all the knowledge in all the universes their quest would already be over. Alas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to catch up with myself, eesh. Also I think this series has become a game of ‘how many references to other things can I throw in before I get fed up with myself?’
> 
> The answer, apparently, is never too many.

There’s something off about the Spirit of Radio, something that sets Jehan’s teeth on edge and makes em want to ripple and warp into a more formidable shape. E can _see_ the strangeness in them, the bright-dark edge to the stumps where the ghost hands are separate from their wrists, where the neck is sliced clean in half.

“ _Speak your unfettered truth._ " Jehan hisses in the Only Tongue, stepping toward the ghost. They step back, confused and frightened, but Jehan will not be thwarted. " _Speak only the voice gifted to you and use only words of sincerity._ "

And the spirit starts to blab.

—

While Jehan confronts their ghostly guest, Grantaire turns to Combeferre.

"Is your life always full of weird music references, or is this a new development?"

Combeferre cocks his head, thinking.

"You know, I really couldn’t say."

"Huh."

—

"This is Courfeyrac, he’s _a_ spirit of radio not _the_ Spirit of Radio, and he got trapped here.” Jehan says, sliding a shrewd glance at the contrite looking spirit at eir side before continuing. “He was a female spirit of radio before he got trapped by the Library and then he was just an idea and now he’s reformed himself. And he’s not very good at being spooky.”

"You’re really not." Says Grantaire, grinning when Combeferre claps a hand over his eyes.

"We just want to find the Librarian so we can look up information on spirit cats so that Grantaire doesn’t have to turn back into a pile of bones and unsuccessfully sacrificed flesh."

Courfeyrac looks at Grantaire like he might just drop into a pile of ash right then and there, but the skeleton just shrugs, ‘what can you do?’ writ across his face.

"Well I don’t know where the Librarian is - I don’t think there is one, really. Just that face-thing on the door." Courfeyrac says, scratching the back of his head. One of his hands floats away, finger-walking across the nearest door jamb.

Jehan, Combeferre and Grantaire trade matching looks of despair.

"Wellp!" Courfeyrac chirps, wrangling his wayward hand back into the vicinity of its stump, "I know where the directory is, so we can start from there and work our way through the doors." He spins on his heel and leads them around the dropping-lifting maze of unusual thresholds, opening one that looks like it could be made out of fat glass beads suspended in water.

The directory room is smaller, round, and lit by a very pale star heart with about a dozen tiny orbiting mini-planets on rotation around it. The room is moderately cold and their footsteps muffled strangely, as though the echo of their boots on the marble floor is smothered before it can quite reach them.

The directory itself is a large, black monolith in the shape of a rectangle that hovers about six inches above the floor, slowly rotating. As the star’s light glances over it faint inscriptions shiver across it.

"I have _so_ seen this movie.” Grantaire says as they move forward, reaching out to touch the black stone. It shivers and rings like a tapped glass, a brief burst of white particles flowing out of it before a string of symbols blossoms on the stone face.

"What language is _that?"_ Combefere asks, looking over his glasses at the spiky, swirling runes. Symbols. Letters.

"None important enough to translate, apparently." Grantaire huffs. He lets his hand - the skeleton one, huh - fall away from the rock, exceedingly grateful that he doesn’t have blood to drain from his face. Otherwise he’s sure they’d be far more curious about whatever words had come up for him.

(As it is, Jehan looks at him like e knows _exactly_ what the stone said. Grantaire looks away.)

When Combeferre touches the rock it fizzles with something actually legible, which rocks, before the light itself is kind of blinding.

"… Are you kidding me."

"I don’t think the directory _can_ kid.”

"You guys have the worst luck, don’t you?"

"We totally do."

They look up at the neatly printed title of _Arthur Spiderwick’s Guide to the Unwritten World of Magic_. Jehan lets out a noise like a tea kettle. Grantaire does something so that his ribs shake and chime.

"What’s so bad about that?" Asks Combeferre, hand still pressed against the monolith. "It sounds like a field guide."

"It is. Sort of." Jehan says, hands pressed against eir face in frustration.

Grantaire picks up the thought. “The problem isn’t the type of book it’s supposed to be.” He wraps his bone hand around his spine. “It’s that it’s fake.”

Combeferre frowns, looking from Jehan to Courfeyrac to Grantaire. “What do you mean, fake?”

"It doesn’t exist - it’s an idea of a book. A bad one." Jehan grumbles. _"Arthur Spiderwick’s_ _Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You_ is a real book in the real world. But it’s fiction - from another universe, no less.”

Numb, Combeferre lets his hand drop from the monolith. “So we need the idea of an unwritten book from another universe that’s based on _fiction_ to make Grantaire a real boy.” He says it likes he’s waiting for the punchline but not finding the joke particularly funny.

"Essentially."

For a long while Combeferre looks at his hands, then the floor, then the monolith and the star heart above it, face carefully neutral of any emotion. Eventually he turns to Grantaire, eyes narrowed and mouth flat with resignation.

"You owe me."

"For the rest of the days my body exists." He replies.

—

"So where exactly does one _go_ for the idea of a fictional book from another universe that was never written?”

"The ghost stacks of the library, of course."

"… Of course."


	6. The Errors of Comedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing’s ever quite as easy as you want it to be. Luckily for Combeferre, some aspect of the universe isn’t too keen on letting him die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are getting there, I swear.

"So how do we _get_ to the ghost stacks?” Grantaire asks, back in the front room of the library. He’s sitting on a stool dragged out from one of the doors that lead a homier book universe. Jehan’s lantern hangs from his fingers, casting dappled star and moon light spots on the marble.

"Well…" Courfeyrac says, scuffing one shoe against a spot of grass. "You kind of have to do a Dante’s Inferno deal. There aren’t nine layers!" He says, taking in their looks of despair, waving his hands to dismiss that worry. "There’s like, one. Seriously. The library is just super intense - no beating around the bush for heroic quests."

Combeferre leans back on his hands, staring up into the soft purple abyss of the ceiling. A shadow shape, something slinky and spindly, weaves between the folds. He tracks it as long as he can before it vanishes into the darkness.

"What sort of trials do you think we’ll have to face?" Jehan asks, curled around eir lantern. "There’s always a trial, even for short quests like ours _should_ be.” E narrows eir eyes at Grantaire and Combeferre, like they planned the whole brouhaha from the beginning. Grantaire sticks his tongue out - there’s a hole in it shaped like a sharp oblong - and Combeferre just sighs.

"It’s basically the inverse of Mt. Sinai."

Combeferre frowns. “What does that mean, exactly?”

"Well… it’s evil." The spirit says, shrugging.

That makes a lot of sense in a simple way.

"How do we get there?" Jehan asks, standing. E’s stood up between Grantaire’s legs, where his elbows are propped on his knees and his head hangs between his shoulders. It looks like Jehan goes through the skeleton, but Grantaire jerks back and makes a noise like he’s gargling gravel. Jehan look at him like e’s startled, but both e and Grantaire move away from each other. Courfeyrac looks curious but otherwise nonplussed. Combeferre narrows his eyes.

He’ll save his questions for later, Just then they have more serious things to worry about, like - “What else is in the dimension with evil Sinai?”

"Mt. Ianis, actually." Corrects Courfeyrac. "And it should be pretty easy, the door’s right there." He points behind them to a big, dark wood two door set up, carved to look like a human skull with startlingly pointed teeth. Blue wax from long dead candles drips down its shadowed sockets, and the longer Combeferre looks the more certain he is that there are parts of the door that are moving.

"Fabulous." Grantaire grumps, snorting in indignation when Jehan thwaps him on the head.

—

Grantaire and Courfeyrac gape, Jehan has eir head in eir hands, and Combeferre is very pointedly not looking at where they have to go.

"I thought you knew where we were going." Grantaire whispers to Courfeyrac, sounding dumbstruck.

"In theory, yes." He replies in the same tone, fizzing in and out of existence with nerves.

Jehan just sighs.

Mt. Ianis is huge, snow capped, and floating. It rotates very, very slowly, although Combeferre’s pretty sure no one but him can see that.

And above the unnatural mountain floating on the prairie they’ve appeared at, is a complex knot of _giant serpents_.

"Abaia, Jörmungandr, Quetzalcoatl, Aidophedo… " Jehan’s eyes narrow in speculation before e shrugs. "There are more, but I cant see them all. It looks like the Divine Serpent Knot, so the mountain can’t be too evil." E doesn’t mention the fact that although they’re entwined almost too tight to discern one from another, they _are_ chewing on each other’s tails.

"I hope you’re worth it." Jehan tells Grantaire when they start their march across the grass, eyes peeking out of eir lantern.

Grantaire doesn’t reply.

—

Of course, because nothing is easy, the mountain is inhabited by uncomfortably dripping skeleton dragon-wolves that shoot blasts of magic out of their tattered faces.

“ _This had better be the hardest part of our quest!_ " Combeferre shouts, crouching behind a rock as a streak of purple magic shoots by.

Grantaire hopes so too.

—

It happens fast, like -

\- one moment, watching for an opening, trying to edge around the most recent pack of skeleton monsters (Grantaire’s bones ache, skeleton skeleton _skeleton),_ they can see the flat marble platform with a huge book on it, sitting on a pedestal draped in immaculate star-velvet, he’s ready, he has Jehan’s lantern, he’s going to _run for it_ -

\- and Courfeyrac is shouting and Grantaire has a half a moment to feel several warring things like _oh no_ and _oh yes_ and _this is it_ and _I can’t let it end this way_.

And then he’s flinging Jehan’s lantern toward the book, shouting something like run, or get it, while he dives towards Combeferre and Courfeyrac right as the wolf-dragon opens its mouth and spits.

He doesn’t know what happens after that.

—

Jehan launches eirself from the lantern the minute it hits the ground, reaching for the book with desperate, wavering fingers. Eir hands stick to the pages at the same time an earth shaking _thump-THUMP_ rocks the mountain. Or at least, it feels like it to Jehan. When e looks around nothing else is reacting like e is, and then it happens _again,_ but on a lower register (still bone rattling, still disorienting), e spins around to look down the incline toward Combeferre and the others.

All e sees is fire.

“ _Take us away!_ " E screams at the book. " _Take us back to the world Combeferre originates from!_ ”

Now the mountain really shakes, the clouds above split apart, and Divine Snake Knot unwinds in a sinuous ripple, until it’s a giant circle of rainbow scales around an equally huge portal ringed by clouds.

An unearthly scream cracks across Jehan’s spine, making em stiffen and shake. E can’t look back though, even when the screaming voices increase in number and pitch and frost starts to creep across the marble at eir feet.

The air sparks, Jehan closes eir eyes, and then -

—

\- they tumble out onto a street e doesn’t recognize, but the sun is shining and the air is cool and, distantly, there are car noises.

"You guys are a _riot.”_ Courfeyrac huffs, laughing and fizzling into static before pulling back together. He sounds a little hysterical, and Combeferre can’t blame him.

He lies on his back and sighs, breathing in familiar city air and not questioning why they’re in the middle of the road and there aren’t any cars, even though it has to be about one. Jehan is curled in a ball around the grand unholy quest book, Grantaire is sprawled star-fish style and apparently knocked out because he makes little rustling noises like fall leaves being put through a blender.

He shoves his hands into his pockets, rooting around to make sure he hasn’t brought back anything he shouldn’t have - you never know -

\- and ends up with his phone in his hand, vibrating and making bubbly chirping noises.

That’s not normal.

Combeferre frowns, clicking through his phone and all the calls from his friends he’s accumulated in his foray into alternate dimensions.

“ _\- hey, Joly again, just calling to ask about the philosophy lecture - do you need my notes?_ ”

" _-ras, again, you’ve not answered any of my calls or texts. … Are you mad at me?_ ”

“ _Are you okay? Call me._ ”

“ _\- gone. Four days, Combeferre -_ “

“ _\- getting really worried here -_ “

" **_\- call the police -_** “

“ _**\- a week!**_ ”

The messages go on, growing in volume and concern until, strangely, from about an hour prior to being dropped on the street.

It starts with Joly.

“ _Hey Combeferre - just calling to ask if you’re okay? I have record on my phone of calling you a lot, but I can’t remember what I said? So I’m going to the clinic to see what my doctor has to say. If you need me, I’ll probably be there - see you!_ ”

And follows with Enjolras.

“ _Hi Combeferre. I wanted to let you know that whatever I called you about probably wasn’t very important, because I can’t remember it. I probably was just up too late and worked myself too hard - and you don’t need to say anything, I **know.** Anyway - I’ll see you tomorrow at the cafe._ ”

Jehan and Courfeyrac, who’s more solid than not, and Grantaire, who’s looking groggy and shaken, frown at him, clearly confused.

"I guess the Library sort of reset their memories because you lived?" says Courf.

"That’s as good a reason as any." He says, dropping his phone into his pocket again. There’s no reason to go to the Musain just then, even though he wants to. Enjolras wont be there, he has work, and Joly is probably still at the clinic, bothering doctors about a condition that never had existed and wouldn’t show up on any of the scans anyway.

"We should go home." He says, looking over his gaggle of new acquaintances. Jehan is half out of eir lantern, laying across the book as more of an outline than not and startlingly grey. Courfeyrac is slumped against Grantaire’s side,caught somewhere between fifties pin-up and ‘spooky’ ghost. And Grantaire, despite being less inclined to showing physical stress, looks like he might just fold into himself and sleep for a week. Or return to the earth - there’s an air about him that says he’s ready to do both. "Courfeyrac, you need an anchor, and the rest of us need to sleep."

"But - "

"No." He points at Grantaire. "Just no."


	7. And the World Keeps Spinning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interlude - or, a brief mention of those not dimension hopping, those brave, beautiful souls that bare with the mundane while epic quests are happening. OR: Joly finds an unusual store and Enjolras finds a cat.

_October 3_

Combeferre is not in his seat for their joint philosophy lecture. Now, this is not terribly unusual (Enjolras is a high maintenance everything, but particularly a high maintenance roommate), but normally Combeferre calls, or texts, or - or makes smoke signals or something.

"I don’t like this." Joly says, drawing spirals and sketchy, leafless trees on the corner of his notes. Bossuet hums, pushing a pencil across the desk with telekinesis.

"Call him when class is out?" Bossuet says, grimacing when the pencil spins off into oblivion. No finding it now.

Joly hums, outlining a pointed face on the wood of the table.

-

Combeferre is not at his workshop, he’s not in the apartment, he’s, not on the roof of their building communing with the owls that are drawn to him - Enjolras is worried.

Now, Enjolras knows Combeferre is important, more than a little bit of a big deal in both the necromancer communities and the Elder Animal ones, and sometimes he has to go places or hold conference, but he always _tells him_.

Enjolras ends up writing nonsense words like _ghosts_ and _purple lightning_ and something about weird physics on his speeches and papers, but he doesn’t know if it means anything. He isn’t particularly clairvoyant or psychic, but being around Combeferre draws the power out of everyone, and if Combeferre were trying to reach him, he should probably be paying attention.

As it is, he deletes or throws away the weird words, frowning at the clock as he does so.

—

_October 4_

Joly kisses Musichetta and Bossuet when he leaves for his internship at the hospital, but otherwise, all is quiet.

He only calls Combeferre onces.

-

Enjolras goes to work, goes to school, writes a paper, calls Combeferre, and goes to sleep.

All is well.

—

_October 5_

Joly wakes up feeling like he’s covered in molasses, thick and firm, and it fees that way all day - like moving is taxing everything out of him, like he’s diving into wet concrete when he walks.

He calls Combeferre again. Nothing.

-

Enjolras sleeps through work and school, only waking up when a loud, static crack zings out of his radio.

He wakes up with a gurgle, feeling like slow death and wintertime stillness.

He goes back to sleep.

—

_October 6_

Joly passes through the day in a daze. He could be - tired? sick? He could be so many things.

He doesn’t know what he is. He’s distant.

-

Enjolras passes through the day in a fog. He could be - over worked? underfed? He could be so many things.

He doesn’t know what he is. He’s floating.

—

_October 7_

Joly curls between Bossuet and Musichetta, and dreams.

_There are floating doors and things in the shadows, and he’s fighting through long swaths of purple fabric that clings to his face. The floor is cool and the air is still but he knows people are talking, and he knows he’s looking for something but he doesn’t know what -_

-

_\- to look for, just that he’ll know it when he sees it. There’s a huge skull lit by blue flame in its sockets that watches him, flames flickering with him as he moves, splitting open when his hands touch it, and then he’s surrounded by stars and a giant floating rock._

Enjolras sprawls alone, and dreams

—

_October 8_

Combeferre hasn’t been around in - a long time.

"Maybe he’s out at a conference?" Musichetta asks, measuring something sparkly and green into a vial. Musichetta is the only kitchen-alchemy witch Joly knows, and watching her is always fascinating.

"He would say, though, right?"

Right?

He calls again.

-

"I haven’t seen him either." Enjolras says into the phone, busing himself with washing the dishes. There’s something prickling the back of his mind, something he should know. "But I’ll call you first thing if anything happens."

"Alright." Joly says, sighing, and they hang up.

Enjolras dials Combeferre’s number and dries a plate.

—

_October 9_

"Its been a week." Joly says into the phone, sitting between Bossuet and Musichetta, who rub his shoulders in alternating circles.

"Please, Combeferre, if you’re in trouble, _let us know_.”

-

"Please don’t make me call the police, you know how ridiculous they are." Enjolras says, as close to pleading as he’s ever gotten.

"Please come home."

—

_October 10_

_A floating mountain, a prairie the color of sand, a giant knot of serpents int he sky, the taste of dust and snow, skeleton wolf monsters._

-

_Purple magic streaking through the air, fire, an earthquake, the sky splitting open to reveal a blackness densely speckled by stars._

—

_October 11_

Joly wakes up chipper. He smacks big wet kisses on both Bossuet and Musichetta’s cheeks, and looks at his phone. There re a lot of calls to Combeferre, a few to Enjolras, and a general sense of wrongness that he feels is exceedingly missplaced. He calls Combeferre to let him know he’s sorry about whatever he’d been calling about, and that he’d probably be at the clinic because he’s sure he’s missing days, but he’s not sure which _ones._

On his walk to the clinic he passes by a shop that has its curtains drawn behind the bay display window. The door is dark, and a skull has been carved into it in such a way that it takes him a moment to realize it’s carved _in_ not out.

He reaches out and touches the smooth inward curve of the eye socket, the nose, the teeth.

Out of the corner of his eye he catches the curtains rustling, and when he looks over there’s an outline of a human hand on the glass.

He turns around and walks away as quickly as he can without looking suspicious.

-

The first thing Enjolras does when he wakes up is check his phone, like normal. There are about a million calls and texts to Combeferre, but when he goes through to look at them they look like wingdings. The texts to Joly are mostly legible, save for a handful also in pictographs, so he texts Joly, calls Combeferre to let him know that whatever he’d been bugging him about probably wasn’t all that important, seeing as he couldn’t remember it.

He’s standing in his kitchen with his toothbrush in his mouth, staring blankly at his empty sink and watching the sunlight on the water residue when he sees it. There’s a shape on the fire escape, and when he turns to look at it he’s struck dumb.

It’s a cat. A _spirit_ cat.

Its eyes are sparkling yellow from corner to corner, its sleek black body fading into particle streams as it stares in at him. It yawns, flashing a black-purple tongue and teeth as bright as stars, and he’s moving to open the window before he even thinks about it.

"Hey, hey." He says, or tries to say, around his toothbrush as he scoops the cat up. It makes a rumbling noise that he can feel in his teeth as he supports it with one arm, sort of in shock. The cat seems perfectly content to curl against his arm while he shuffles back to his bathroom to finish with is teeth, and even slides up his arms and around his neck when he needs both hands to wash his face. He can feel the particle dust that floats away from it, and is surprised to find the cat _soft_ when it rubs its cheek against his.

He scratches between its ears and moves on with his routine, feeling strangely relaxed.


End file.
